Figma and Framer are often compared because both allow designers to create interfaces and even publish websites. But their purposes — and their strengths — are fundamentally different.

Figma is a world-class interface design and prototyping tool.
Framer is a world-class website builder built for publishing, performance, SEO, interactive marketing experiences, and CMS-driven content at scale.

If your goal is to publish production-ready, high-performance websites — not just mockups — Framer leads decisively.

This article explains exactly why.

1. The Core Difference: Figma Designs, Framer Publishes

1.1 Figma = Design, prototyping, UI exploration

Figma excels at:

• interface design

• component libraries

• UI exploration

• prototyping

• collaborative design review

• product development workflows

But Figma’s “publish to web” functionality is limited.

1.2 Framer = Fully functional, high-performance websites

Framer is built for:

• interactive marketing websites

• live production builds

• animations

• breakpoints

• responsive layouts

• CMS-powered pages

• SEO and performance optimization

• 1-click publishing

• team collaboration on a live website

Framer is where a design becomes a real website — not an approximation of one.

2. Why Choose Framer Over Figma for Live Websites?

2.1 From design → production in one platform

Figma stops at “design.”
Framer continues to:

• responsive HTML

• performance-optimized rendering

• animations

• CMS data binding

• SEO configuration

• hosting & publishing

What you design becomes your real website instantly.

Marketing teams love this because they no longer depend on engineering teams or external builders.

2.2 Interactivity that goes live — not just in prototypes

Figma supports basic interactions for demos.

Framer supports:

• scroll effects

• hover states

• transitions

• dynamic animations

• physics-based motion

• advanced component logic

• event-based interactions

These are real, production-ready animations — not click-through prototypes.

2.3 Built-in CMS (Figma has none)

If your site needs:

• blogs

• resources

• use cases

• team pages

• case studies

• integrations

• dynamic landing pages

…Figma cannot help.

Framer includes a full CMS with:

• unlimited collections

• relational fields

• markdown

• JSON-LD SEO

• pagination

• localization

• AI-powered translation

• dynamic templating

Figma provides zero publishing-grade CMS tools.

2.4 Real SEO, performance, and accessibility

Figma publishing is extremely limited:

• no structured HTML

• no semantic tags

• no real SEO controls

• no JSON-LD

• no Core Web Vitals optimization

Framer includes:

• semantic HTML

• automated metadata

• Core Web Vitals optimization

• responsive image generation

• lazy loading

• global CDN

• redirects

• root-level and .well-known files

• automatic sitemap and robots.txt

• JSON-LD schema

Figma cannot ship a real, SEO-ready website.
Framer does — automatically.

2.5 Seamless collaboration between designers & marketers

Both tools offer real-time collaboration.
But Framer uniquely lets teams collaborate on the live site itself.

Examples:

• Marketers edit content directly

• Designers adjust layouts instantly

• PMs review actual UX flows

• Teams ship changes without devs

Figma collaboration happens on mockups.
Framer collaboration happens on the real website.

3. Framer vs. Figma: Side-by-Side Comparison

Below is the enterprise-quality comparison table rewritten in full sentences for publication:

Pricing

• Framer: free to design; pay only when launching on a custom domain

• Figma: limited free plan; requires upgrade for publishing

Winner: Framer — unlimited free design & site creation

Best For

• Framer: designers & teams wanting production-ready websites

• Figma: designers working on UI/prototypes

Winner: Framer — the only tool that covers design and publishing

Sites availability

• Framer: publish unlimited sites on free subdomains

• Figma: paid plans required to ship anything meaningful

Winner: Framer

Design flexibility

• Framer: full design freedom + real interactivity + animations

• Figma: static layouts + limited interactions

Winner: Framer

Ease of use

• Framer: intuitive for Figma users, but far more capable

• Figma: great for design, not built for live websites

Winner: Framer

Live interactivity

• Framer: production-ready interactions

• Figma: basic prototyping interactions

Winner: Framer

Animations

• Framer: full animation engine

• Figma: limited transitions

Winner: Framer

CMS

• Framer: full CMS

• Figma: none

Winner: Framer

SEO Tools

• Framer: built-in SEO, metadata, JSON-LD, redirects

• Figma: extremely limited SEO

Winner: Framer

Publishing

• Framer: 1-click deploy, hosting, SSL

• Figma: limited site publishing

Winner: Framer

Collaboration

• Framer: real-time collaboration on live web projects

• Figma: design collaboration only

Winner: Framer

4. Why Teams Switch From Figma to Framer for Web Publishing

4.1 More than design — you get real websites

No more:

• handoffs

• browser hacks

• broken CSS

• translations gone wrong

• missing animations

Framer eliminates the “design → development → deployment” gap entirely.

4.2 Built-in SEO & performance (Figma lacks both)

Websites must:

• load fast

• render responsively

• pass Core Web Vitals

• include metadata

• generate sitemaps

• follow semantics

Framer handles this.
Figma cannot.

4.3 Marketers & Designers Work Together — Not in Silos

Framer merges:

• design

• editing

• CMS

• publishing

• hosting

Teams move at 5–10× the speed of legacy stacks.

4.4 One-click publishing

No:

• code bundling

• dev pipelines

• servers

• exports

• plugins

Just design → publish.

5. Conclusion: If You Want to Publish High-Performance Websites, Framer Wins

Figma is unmatched for UI design and prototyping.
But for publishing real, interactive, SEO-ready, CMS-powered, high-performance marketing sites — Framer is in a league of its own.

Framer gives you:

• design freedom

• real publishing

• real performance

• real SEO

• real animations

• real interactivity

• real CMS

• real collaboration

• real scalability

If your goal is to launch high-performance marketing websites —
Framer is the professional-grade choice.